


de rigeur

by helsinkibaby



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Community: comment_fic, F/M, Fluff, Het, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 05:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7030573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caitlin helps Joe to tidy up after Barry and Iris's wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	de rigeur

**Author's Note:**

> Theme : happy endings  
> Prompt : Any, Any,
> 
> The fun that day  
> Didn’t start until  
> We left on our honeymoon  
> http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/720031.html?thread=95052959#t95052959

"You don't have to do this." 

Joe meant what he said but Caitlin didn't break stride as she brushed past him to head into the kitchen, depositing the wine glasses she carried beside the others already sitting by the sink. "Don't be silly," she said, turning to face him. Her long crimson dress - Flash red, Iris had pointed out with a wicked grin - made a swishing noise against the tiles as she turned and she made a face as she reached down with one hand to pull it up. Bare feet, toenails painted the same colour as the dress, were suddenly visible and she bit her lip as she glanced down. "Don't judge me," she said. "I just couldn't take those heels anymore."

He held up both hands. "No judgement here," he told her and he meant it too. It wasn't like he hadn't ditched his bow tie and tuxedo jacket at the first available opportunity. Now, with everyone gone but her, the first two buttons of his shirt were open and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow. He understood all too well the value of comfort after a long day.  "Though I did think I was losing my mind and you'd suddenly shrunk three inches."

Caitlin groaned and rolled her eyes. "Try four and a half." She moved towards him, back towards the backyard where the detritus of the wedding of the year still lingered. "Cisco wanted to know why I can run around STAR Labs all day in heels but not cope today... I thought an engineer would understand the difference in structural support between regular shoes and strappy sandals, but apparently not." 

There was more than a hint of asperity in her tone and Joe suddenly felt glad that Cisco was nowhere around. Which, come to think of it, was unusual. "Where is Cisco?" he asked. "Surely if the bridesmaid is part of the clean up crew, the best man should be?"

"He left at the same time as Wally and Jesse," she said, a funny smile on her face that Joe almost missed at the mention of his son and his girlfriend off somewhere doing who knew what. They were a cute couple, Joe knew, and well suited to boot, but they were so young and if Joe was going to have grandkids, he'd rather his newlywed daughter go first. "With Amanda."

The mention of the name, along with the song-song intonation, had Joe grinning. "Iris's friend from the newspaper that he was making time with?"

Caitlin smirked and Joe blinked - it wasn't an expression he was used to seeing from her but there was no other word for it. "I saw them when they were leaving," she told him. "I think they're going to be making more than time."

If the smirk had made him blink, the bawdy remark made his eyes widen, had him doing a hard double take. As if his reaction made her realise what she'd said, she clamped her lips shut into a thin line, her eyes wide as saucers. He didn't know which of those things made him start to laugh but when she began to laugh along with him, he decided he didn't much care. 

"OK," she said after her laughter had subsided to giggles. "I may have had too much champagne."

Joe grabbed some empty glasses from the nearest table, wishing that a small backyard wedding hadn't seemed like such a good idea at the time. "I'll make some coffee," he decided. "Apparently we're even allowed have some wedding cake to go with it." Caitlin made a suitably impressed face as she took up some plates and she was still giggling as she walked back to the kitchen with him. 

"Is this where you're 'allowed' to have cake as long as Iris doesn't find out?" she wondered, lips twitching, and he narrowed his eyes and gave her his best cop staring down a criminal glare. It didn't seem to have any effect on her whatsoever. 

"Depends," he finally responded. "You gonna rat me out?" 

She shook her head quickly, still grinning but the grin faded to be replaced by her own glare when the motion dislodged a strand of hair from her carefully upswept style. Dropping the plates she'd been carrying near the sink, she reached up, frowning in concentration as she tried to pin it back in place. To his eyes, it didn't look like it was going well and his suspicions were confirmed when she blew a steady, if impatient looking, stream of air between her lips before eying him steadily. "No judgement right?" 

His confused nod was rewarded with a quick smile. "Thank God there's no-one else here," she murmured as she raised her two hands to her head, began removing bobby pins at a steady rate. "Barefoot in your kitchen, taking my hair down..."

His grin matched hers. "What would the neighbours say?" 

Caitlin chuckled but there was little humour in it suddenly. "You sound like my mother." He tilted his head, not having heard Caitlin speak like that before but she forestalled any question with her next words. "Don't ask... I may have had too much champagne but not that much." 

Deciding that the better part of valour was discretion, Joe left that alone. Instead, noting the sound of annoyance she made as one pin got caught on a snag, he took a step towards her. "Let me help you there." 

Caitlin froze,  hand stilling in mid-pull. She narrowed her eyes as he took another step in her direction, and Joe knew that look from many strategy sessions at STAR Labs - it was the same look that she gave Barry and Cisco when she didn't think their plan was going to work. "You don't have to-" she began and he didn't try to stop his chuckle at her repeat of his earlier words. 

"Iris was five when Francine left," he said, moving to stand behind her, the memory of Francine, not for the first time today, bringing a lump to his throat. "I learned my way around a hairstyle pretty quickly after that." 

He could see the edges of her lips turn up in a faint smile. "Ronnie offered to help me brush my hair once." She shuddered and yet her smile deepened. "Never again." 

Joe nodded, calmly and slowly continuing to ease the pins out of her hair. "Were you ok today?" he found himself asking. "Iris was worried..." 

"Because the last wedding we were all at was mine?" Caitlin's voice was low, amused. "I told her I'd be fine." 

"Yeah, well, you know Iris. I think she was afraid you were just telling her what she wanted to hear." 

Caitlin made a little noise in the back of her throat but didn't otherwise speak for a long moment. The pile of bobby pins grew on the counter as Joe worked his way around the back of her head, amazed at how many of them were hidden there. He was concentrating so much  on not missing any, on not pulling at her hair, that he almost missed her next words. "I did think about him today. And I'll always miss him. After Jay..." He felt her shudder again, but this time there was no smile to go along with it. "They say it takes a bad relationship to make you appreciate a good one, right?" 

Joe had had enough experience to agree with that assessment. "I hear that," he said, pulling the last pin free as he spoke.  "I think we're done," he said, running his fingers through her hair to check for any he'd missed and it was only when she shivered, when he saw the goosebumps dotting her arms and shoulders, that he realised what he'd done, what an intimate gesture that was. 

Which lead him to realise how close he was standing to her, close enough that there was barely a hair's breadth between their two bodies. 

He dropped his hands, with every intention of putting them down by his side. Instead, they landed on her bare shoulders. Her skin was soft and warm as another shiver rippled through her and Joe swallowed hard, knowing he was stepping over a line but apparently powerless to stop. 

She didn't turn, didn't look at him but slowly, ever so slowly, she lifted her hands, laid them over his. Her fingers closed around his and he was prepared for her to lift his hands from her skin, for her to push him away, maybe even for her to slap him. 

But he wasn't prepared for her fingers to squeeze tightly, for her body to relax, to lean back against him so that he was supporting her weight. Her hair, now a riot of curls, danced across the back of his hands, raising shivers along his own skin and she tilted her head back against his shoulder just enough that he could see that her eyes were closed, that there was a look of utter peace and contentment on her face. 

It seemed a very long time before she rolled her head so that she was looking in his direction, longer still before she opened her eyes and met his. Her pupils were huge, her cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly parted as he dropped his gaze down to them. 

And she didn't move. 

She didn't move, but he did, lowered his head the couple of inches he needed to so that his lips could meet hers in a kiss that was as tentative as it was  brief. 

Only when he drew away did she move one of her hands, and only then to slide it around to the back of his neck, pulling him down to her to kiss him again, this time opening her mouth against his, turning in his arms to press her body against his and deepen the kiss. 

It could have been minutes, it could have been hours later when he pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against hers, catch his breath. This close, he couldn't miss the flush of her cheeks, the curve of her lips. "Caitlin..." he breathed, his fingers flexing against her hips. "This is... inappropriate..."

He knew it was the wrong word the second it left his lips so hearing Caitlin giggle was quite a surprise. "According to Cisco," she said, pressing her body closer against his, something that seconds earlier he would have said wasn't possible, "a single bridesmaid being picked up at the wedding is practically _de rigeur_." He could tell by the tone of her voice that she was teasing him, and her eyes were sparkling with humour and happiness as she looked up at him. "And no," she continued, lifting her hands to his chest, fingers playing with the buttons there, "I don't think that's what you're doing." 

Which Joe supposed was something. "Caitlin, I'm old enough-" he began, and she shook her head, didn't let him finish. 

"Joe, the last man I kissed was a psychopath who murdered hundreds if not thousands of people. He kidnapped me, kidnapped you, wanted to destroy two Earths..." She bit her lip, glanced down, but only for a second. When she looked up, one eyebrow was lifted in unmistakeable challenge. "That? Was inappropriate. This?" She raised herself on tiptoes, brushed her lips over his. "Not so much." 

The way she pressed herself against him had his eyes fluttering shut. "Caitlin..." He ground the word out and he felt her shiver in his arms. 

"I'm not asking for a commitment, Joe." Her voice was very quiet when she spoke. "But I've lost - _we've_ lost enough to know that you can't take things for granted. And that kiss.." She broke off, bit her lip again and he heard himself chuckle. 

"The one that made me understand how Barry felt when he got struck by lightning?" The analogy made her beam and he found himself thinking that he could get used to that smile. "Yeah... it was a good kiss." 

Caitlin narrowed her eyes. "I don't know," she said, tilting her head and looking thoughtful, albeit with a slight twitch to her lips that made Joe pull her a little bit closer. "I thought there was some room for improvement... like maybe we could practise some more..."

Joe didn't even try to stop the laughter that bubbled up inside him. "Well now, who am I to argue with a genius?" he asked and, true to his word, he didn't. 


End file.
